Mr. Brian Smyth:

I referred earlier to the farmer euro being spent in the local community. The farmer is continually spending money. Farmers get the annual payments for their schemes and they sell cattle, sheep or whatever. That money circulates, and the IFA report showed that it multiplies by four within the community. The same forestry euro multiplies by approximately 40 cent above the euro, so there is a big difference. The economies in Leitrim and other places are built on small farms. They may not necessarily be viable in themselves if one looks at it from a purely financial perspective, but they are maintaining viable rural communities. What is happening is that, while every farmer is entitled to the best price they can get, many of these people have died or have gone into nursing homes and their places have been sold. That is where much of the land is coming into play. The family is away and they are selling it or the farmer is no longer able and somebody else is applying for the licence on behalf of the farmer so it can push the value up and use the money to look after the farmer in the nursing home or wherever. It is very unfortunate that this is the case.

In terms of employment, the number of farms is referred to at the back of the submission we sent, if the Deputy has seen it. The 2019 study that was done in Leitrim by University College Dublin shows, although the draft county development plan shows a different number, that there are 309.3 full-time jobs associated with forestry and wood processing in Leitrim. Masonite Ireland is there. However, only 41% are related to Leitrim residents working, so that is people who come into the county to work there, like many of the contractors. I believe there are two contractors harvesting. They operate nationally, and it is a large-scale, industrial operation. It is highly intensive machinery-wise, so the numbers are small. A large portion of that work would be haulage, and that has its own issues as well. There are 127 full-time jobs relating to residents working in Leitrim on plantation and so forth.

We see job displacement with planting land. In the agricultural census of 2010, the average size of a farm was 25.1 ha. There were 3,673 farms in Leitrim. The average labour unit was 1.5 based on the annual work unit of seven hours, five days per week. Looking at that, we see a displacement in the land planted in that period of time of approximately 1,297 jobs out of agriculture, compared with what was created in the equivalent forestry. If one has forest farms, one is reducing the input of labour across the board. It is also downstream because that farmer is not spending money in the local co-operative buying wrap, getting a contractor in or going to the mart. One is reducing the economic impact by planting land. It is clear.